MONTREAL – For Team USA, it was a poor start and Grand Finland.
The Americans appeared to be in trouble early, raising the opening goal, allowing Finland to control the tempo throughout two periods on Thursday night.
Eventually, Team USA took a foot down in a 6-1 victory to hold a four-country showdown, boosting the dominant third period from both Tkachuk brothers Brady and Matthew, joining together. Line directed by Mike Sullivan.
However, it wasn't that simple, not as easy and wasn't as convincing as the final score proposed in the pre-tournament favorite.
The game was on balance until early in the third time when Saros scored a pair of soft goals that could turn Team USA into a loss.
Still, Americans hoped that the final 20 minutes would show much more of what they could do at this best-on-best stage than the first 40 minutes.
On February 13th, 2025, they won 6-1 against Finland. Getty Images
“This is a time-consuming, short tournament,” JT Miller said. “It usually takes time to get chemistry. I come up with some timely plays. The group did it today.”
This applies to all four teams in this tournament, but the chemistry specific to the Tkachuk brothers won on Thursday over the chemistry that the rest of the team were working to build.
Sullivan went to the line blender along this way, combining Tkachuks on either side of Jack Eychelle to switch his defensive pair and move Kyle Connor to the third line with Matt Boldy and Miller.
They were in the third lead 2-1, so they led 2-1. In the second half of the year, Boldy's goal, who broke his tie – swelled to defeat within 30 seconds of the start of the period.
In the third, third 15 seconds, Matthew Tokachuk's floater from above the left circle defeated Saros Clean for a power play goal.
Eleven seconds later, Jake Guentzel won five holes for the Finnish netminder.
Brady Tkachuk took part in the next action, sliding a backhand from Aychelle's feed for the second goal of the night, with Matthew second in the power play late in that period.
“I think it was better than all of the dreams you had,” Brady said. “For that to happen and for Matthew, that's a big goal for our team too. …I really don't have the words to describe it right now.”
This was a great relief to the disaster before the Tkachuks got things.
On Thursday morning, Sullivan spoke about being a team in the full sense of the word.
Until the third term that night, his team appeared to need more practice time, misplaced passes, and offsides like groups that weren't playing with each other.
Of course, that's exactly them.
“We're all new,” said Charlie McAvoy. “Everyone is going to play a little differently with different people. Maybe every shift, every other shift, it depends. You have to realize that chemistry as quickly as possible. So, I I thought they really found it towards the second end.”
Learning Curve Team USA lasted more than 60 minutes on Thursday as Team Canada and hostile crowds await Saturday.
There is no room for opposition to the Canadian team that played high-flying hockey in the opener. 180 degrees have been removed from the harsh physical game USA and Finland that came out 24 hours later.
Aerosmith's “Dream On” exploded in an American dressing room when a reporter entered.
The dream became the reality of Tkachuks on Thursday.
The dream could become a reality for Team USA on Saturday.
